From the Potteries to Wembley, the argument around Manchester City’s financial case has reopened an old wound for Stoke City. Tony Pulis, who led the club to the 2011 FA Cup final, believes the trophy should now belong in Staffordshire rather than Manchester after City were found to have breached Premier League financial rules.
City won that final 1-0 at Wembley through Yaya Touré’s goal, ending a long wait for major silverware under Roberto Mancini. For Stoke, it remains the closest the club came to lifting the FA Cup. Fifteen years on, Pulis has returned to the occasion with a markedly different view of what his side encountered on that afternoon in London.
The Welsh manager has called for the cup to be removed from City’s collection and awarded to Stoke. His question is centred on the competitive consequences for clubs who faced a side assembled under financial circumstances now judged to have broken the rules.
“When will we receive our FA Cup?” Pulis asked, arguing that Stoke lost to a team found guilty of contravening the financial regulations set by the Premier League.
A final viewed through a different lens
Pulis recalled the gap between the resources available to the two finalists. Touré, the match-winner, was said to earn roughly ten times the salary of any Stoke player, while the midfielder’s transfer fee from Barcelona exceeded the combined cost of Stoke’s starting XI in the final.
At the time, Pulis took pride in taking a modest club to the national final against a team packed with elite players and managed by Mancini. Defeat was painful, but it appeared to be the expected outcome of a contest against a rapidly rising superclub. The subsequent financial findings have changed that perspective.
“After the game, the disappointment was overtaken by the fact that we had played a side full of superstars, faced an elite coach in Roberto Mancini and still had not won,” Pulis wrote. “Now I see it very differently. I still feel cheated. If they broke the rules, what will the punishment be?”
There is, however, no current prospect of the 2011 FA Cup being taken from Manchester City and reassigned to Stoke. Calls for titles to be stripped have grown among clubs and supporters who believe they were disadvantaged, but no such measure is presently under consideration for the honours City collected in recent years.
